The Parts Men Play eBook

The Englishman’s voice was so low that it seemed
as if he were talking more to himself than to his
listener.

‘What happened to that swine?’ he ejaculated
suddenly. ’I mean the one I almost killed.
By any chance, did he die?’

‘I saw in a paragraph last week,’ said
Selwyn, ’that he was out on crutches for the
first time. The paper also commented on your
complete disappearance.’

‘I wish I had killed him,’ said the young
man grimly. ’If I ever get a chance I’ll
tell you about him. I was drunk at the time—­that’s
what saved his life. If I had been sober I should
have finished him. Well, it’s a damp night,
my friend, and I won’t keep you any longer from
a decent billet.’

‘Look here, Durwent,’ said Selwyn; ’come
along to my rooms. You’re soaked to the
skin, and I could give you a change and a shakedown
for the night.’

‘Thanks very much; but I’m accustomed
to this kind of thing.’

‘You won’t be seen,’ urged Selwyn.
’I have accepted so much from your family that
you would do me a kindness in coming.’

’Well, I must say I’m not married to this
place. If you don’t mind taking in a disreputable
wharf-rat’——­

‘That’s the idea,’ said Selwyn,
helping him to his feet. The Englishman shivered
slightly.

‘You haven’t a flask, have you?’
he queried. ’I didn’t know how cold
I was.’

‘I haven’t anything with me,’ said
the American; ’but I can give you a whisky and
something to eat at my rooms.’

‘Right! Thanks very much.’

Tucking the cape under his arm, and shaking his waterproof
cap to clear it of water, Dick Durwent followed the
American on to the Embankment, where the two sphinxes
of Egypt squatted, silent sentinels.

II.

To avoid the crowds as much as possible, the two men
followed the Embankment, and had reached the Houses
of Parliament, intending to make a detour into St.
James’s Square, when Selwyn felt a hand upon
his shoulder. He turned quickly about, and Durwent
moved off to one side to be out of the light of a
lamp.

‘Sweet son of liberty,’ said the new-comer,
‘how fares it?’

It was Johnston Smyth, more airily shabby than ever.
Over his head he held an umbrella in such disrepair
that the material hung from the ribs in shreds.
A profuse black tie hid any sign of shirt, and both
the legs of his trousers and the sleeves of his coat
seemed to have shrunk considerably with the damp.

‘How are you?’ said Selwyn, shaking hands.

’Temperamentally on tap; artistically beyond
question; gastronomically unsatisfied.’
At this concise statement of his condition, Smyth
took off his hat, gazed at it as if he had been previously
unaware of its existence, and replaced it on the very
back of his head.

‘Things are not going too well, then?’
said Selwyn, glancing anxiously towards Durwent, and
wondering how he could get rid of the garrulous artist.